Power Rangers: Fleet Defence
by MrFraggleSpock
Summary: In the aftermath of a crippling attack from extra-dimensional invaders, an alternate future Earth struggles to rebuild in the ruins of civilisation. Now, facing a resurgence of the threat, Doctor Markus Graver, a disgraced scientist, is forced to resurrect his 'Power Rangers' project to form a task-force to fight back!
1. Prologue: The Black Fleet

_A few years ago, humanity was experimenting with hyper-dimension frequencies as a means of accessing new realms of existence and finally decoding the great mysteries of the universe. They constructed vast satellite arrays to beam energy to the stars._

… _But something went horribly wrong._

 _A vast crack splintered the sky open, pouring crimson light, and fleet of billions upon billions of obsidian-black ships poured forth like a swarm and swept across the earth like locusts and charred the land to ash._

 _Humanity was barely able to defend itself, but then one day, the invaders inexplicably fled back into the aether, and have not been seen to return since, although rumour and paranoia of a return are rampant._

 _As humanity struggles to rebuild in the ruins of a devastated Earth, man responsible for the experiments, Markus Graver is a pariah, spending fifteen years as a broken alcoholic shell of his former self, following the death of his wife._

 _Now, Graver works with the terrestrial military effort to rebuild the planet, and soon finds he may be forced to revisit the past…_


	2. Episode One: The Return, Part One

He awoke to the sound of the phone buzzing on the bedside table, the display flashing incessantly. Doctor Markus Graver eyes moved sluggishly behind his lids, and he let out a slow lethargic groan as the shaft of blinding-white light that glared in through the half-open shutter caressed his face.

In a groggy, melancholic haze, Graver heaved his body into a sitting position. His jointed were stiff, awkward and achy, and his head thrummed with the background pain of his hangover, a quiet reminder of last night's self-medication.

With a sigh, more of indolence than exertion, he picked up the phone and answered, pressing it to his ear 'Graver,' he mumbled wearily, trying to shake off the cobwebs that impeded his sense 'Who is this?' he asked, more lucidly, suddenly conscious of the unknown number on the display.

The voice on the other was youthful and energetic, but the young upstart was clearly trying to mask his own enthusiasm with the kind of briskness that constituted military professionalism these days. Graver tutted in exasperation; he didn't know what was worse: engaging with the clockwork, left-brained ignorance of the military types, or the gibbering, childlike excitement of his own admirers. Someone who encompassed both those categories, he realised, would be his own form of torture personified.

'Sir, Corporal Bennet, sir,' snapped the young officer, a little fumblingly, as if tripping over his words. Still, the sheer volume and sharpness of exclamation made the main his head spike violently and Graver winced involuntarily, hissing through his teeth.

'Great,' he replied after a moment, voice dripping with cynicism and sarcasm. Even then, he toyed with the possibility of hanging up just to piss off the illustrious Commander Stanford, but knew that his military obligations were the only thing keeping him funded, and his 'personality' had put him on thin ice plenty of times before, and he didn't much feel like an act of hungover impetuousness should be the straw to break the camel's back.

'Commander Stanford requests your presence at the installation, sir.' Corporal Bennett informed him dutifully 'Urgent briefing, sir.'

'Thanks,' grumbled Graver a little abruptly, and hung up even more readily.

Swinging out of bed, he flung on the heavy brown trousers and bulky belt buckle scarred and scratched from age, the worn combat boots and a ruffled yellowish shirt that had faded almost to the colour of candlewax.

Graver inspected himself in the mirror as he meticulously cleaved the bristles from the structure of his face, letting the precision laser-cutter remove any traces of facial follicles.

He was a grizzled man—or at least, what someone might perceive to be grizzled—with a ragged shock of silvery-ash-grey hair, a rugged hard face with heavy features. He face was craggy and lined with deep crevasses of age, and had a permanent look of being simultaneously exhausted by and piss of at everyone and everything around him.

These clothes had basically become a sort of default consensual uniform; he rarely ever felt the need to dress otherwise and most of the other garments he owned where of a similar style. If someone were doing a cosplay of "Markus Graver: Mad Scientist and Maverick" they'd know _exactly_ what to wear.

However, there was one piece missing in his signature ensemble, and it was the one item he felt embarrassingly naked without—the jacket. It was little more the scarred, faded brown and tan leather overcoat, and yet it had more intrinsic value to him than most things.

It hung forlornly by the door, almost looking at him expectantly, _daring_ him to venture out into the hard, cruel world once more. Defiantly, he yanked it free, draped it clumsily over his body and trudged off.

It had been a relatively short ride to the installation. The rattling, coughing SUV had trundled bumpily over the uneven gravel-and-dirt road, tires crunching, while Graver surveyed his surroundings idly, trying to distract from the dull throb in his head.

Miles of wheat fields seemed to sway like waves and breathe with the wind. Of course, the Installation had to be miles away from any urban civilisation, so an ocean of nondescript agricultural land seemed like an ideal divider.

He thought momentarily about asking the young driver, whose eyes were fixed squarely on the road with an impassive tunnel vision, what the particulars of this briefing were, but then he sobered up and realised she probably wouldn't know.

Out in the vast distance, a series of twisted metal hulks loomed like shadow puppets on the horizon, all buckled girders and charred metal. They had been enormous satellite transceivers, once, now they were just wrecks. Wrecks he'd helped build _and_ destroy.

They arrived at the installation, as Graver offered the required clearance credentials to the two grunts standing on either side of the wire fence, which they promptly moved aside to allow the jeep to roll into the Installation.

The 'Installation' (as it had been provisionally dubbed by the planet's military authorities) was a vast interconnected web of huge translucent hemispherical domes interconnected by a series raised canopied walkways like gantries, bridging them together and making the whole thing look a bit like a join-the-dots picture when seen from the air.

As was standard procedure, he was escorted through several more identity checks, flanked by two armed guards on either side, before he was finally granted clearance to enter the Central Command Dome, which the operational hub of the place.

The huge vaulted door swung open with a heavy hiss of hydraulics and a metallic _clank_ , rolling aside as he stepped through into the Operations Lab, a vast bustling space lined with computer control consoles and screens of every shape and size, where personnel clad in either military wear or lab coats hurried around like worker bees.

Upon entry, he saw a familiar face smiling mildly back at him and he felt a twinge of suppressed frustration tinged with anxiety.

'Julian...' muttered Graver noncommittally, trying and failing to keep his tone and expression neutral.

Julian Stanford remained annoyingly placid in the face of Graver's hostility 'Markus,' he beamed with false, two-faced politeness 'How are you?'

'I'm alive,' came the almost spat-out response.

Stanford was a tall and surprisingly board-shouldered man only about a half-decade younger than Graver, with a handsome, smooth face that was unbefitting the military profession, and had lacquered auburn hair save for some handsome greying about the temples. Graver hated his sleezy, sugary, duplicitous nature. He recoiled at the thought they'd once been friends, family even.

A fresh-faced, bubbly and strikingly attractive young woman in a lab coat with tied fair hair sprang between them 'Oh my gosh!' she exclaimed hurriedly, almost forgetting to breathe 'You must be the great Markus Graver! Your work on Trans-mutational morphemic fields was a huge inspiration to me!'

'Oh yeah,' said Graver, smiling at a rare moment of pleasant nostalgia 'The Morping Grid, I remember. A dimension of pure un-configured energy matrices existing in…'

'In a realm of interdimensional hypertime!' said the girl in one breath 'The theory was that if you could gain access to the grid you could transmute data into physical matter.'

Stanford laughed sheepishly 'This young lady, Ms. Rebekah Hannigan is my new head of scientific research—since you decided to limit yourself to a mere consultant. She's a little hyperactive.' There was an implicit apology in his tone.

'You mean since you signed off an experiment that killed my sister?' snapped Graver caustically to shatter the false niceties, then he added more bitterly 'That killed _your_ wife?'

'Yes, alright Markus,' said Stanford calmly, diplomatically 'That's enough bringing up old demons for now,' he sounded tired of the old routine 'Anyway, we think we may have found a way to access your Morphing Field.'

'Morphing _Grid_...'

'Whatever. Anyway, if it works we may be able to finally stabilise to Prototype Transitional Battle Suits.'

'My Power Ranger project,' remembered Graver, a little ashamed of his own youthful poetry 'Bullshit.'

Stanford looked as though he'd just been slapped across the face 'I'm sorry?' he said, wincing,

'It's _bullshit_ , Julian,' snapped Graver tersely 'Even we would find a way of containing an energy field that massive and unstable, there's no way we'd be able to filter it through a morpher—'he corrected himself 'A compact activation device…'

'Well see,' chimes Ms. Hannigan, with an almost schoolgirl meekness to her 'I did. I found a way that would allow us to direct a stable fraction of the Grid into a device to manifest the technology.' She continued, more confident 'Your research provided the basic components for converting matter into pure energy, I just need to reverse the equation…to convert pure energy into matter, then by coding data through it we could manipulate the form that matter took.'

'That is brilliant,' said Graver, his voice a hoarse whisper, jaw hanging open.

Stanford interrupted their momentary scientific discourse 'We're putting a taskforce together so the next time we have a dimensional incursion we can use the morphic technology to combat the invaders—The Power Rangers, after yours and Lisa's pet name for the project.' He looked like a dog who'd just fetched a bone. Evidently, this trite gesture was meant to impress.

Graver crooked an eyebrow 'What's this got to do with me?'

Stanford drew in a breath sharply 'We want you to stay on as the taskforce's technological consultant and…' he hesitated 'And to choose the operators.'

'Alright,' Graver let his face become a grin, relishing the shock on the Commander's face 'I'll do it, provided you give me free reign on the project.' His tone darkened 'And if it'll help take out those Black Fleet bastards… consider me _in_.'


End file.
